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Berichten in September 2011

Tomorrow marks the start of China’s annual ‘October Holiday’. On October first the nation celebrated the founding of Communist ‘New China’ on October 1 1949. The rest of the week is a holiday which most people will use to travel around by train, plane, bus, car and whatever vehicle they can find.

State press bureau Xinhua expects 300 million people to be on the move in the first few days alone… News is always next to noting in those days so I will be on the move as well. See you all back next Thuesday. On pic workers changing Mao’s portrait above Tiananmen before the ‘masses’ will invade the square to celebrate their days off from work.

No cars in this article, only space. China has entered the space race a bit late but they are catching up very quickly. Yesterday evening at 21:16 saw the launch of the unmanned Tianggong-1 ‘space module’, an experimental module that will serve as a test platform for China’s first space station that will hit the big black in 2020.

Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) will be used for three docking experiments, the first two unmanned, the last one manned. The rocket that got Tiangong-1 into space wat the incredible powerful 62 meters high Long March II-F carrier rocket with four big boosters.

Seat doesn’t sell many cars in Europe because nobody knows what the brand stands for. Volkswagens solution: ship ‘m to China. Everybody knows the Chinese market loves cheap sedans so one could expect Seat to bring the Exeo sedan. They don’t. Instead Seat brings two hatchbacks, the Ibiza and Leon.

Lifan is a small Chinese car company that makes no-nonsense and affordable vehicles. Their design was never really pretty but at least original, with one notable exception, that is. The first renderings of the new 520 however show that Lifan is now really in the cloning game, target is the Toyota Vios, made in China by the FAW-Toyota joint venture.

There are three different Toyota Camry’s worldwide; Euro-spec, US-spec and Global-spec. The China-made Camry seems for 99% similar to the European version. The Camry is made in China by the Guangzhou-Toyota joint venture, debut is expected at the Guangzhou Auto Show in late November. Toyota will bring a small surprise in the shape of a ‘Camry Sport Edition’, see below…

Yulong is the biggest automotive company in Taiwan. Yulong makes the Luxgen 7 SUV and the Luxgen 7 MPV. Both cars will also be made in China by the Dongfeng-Yulong joint venture. Yulong however didn’t have a small city car and here Geely came to the rescue. Yulong launched the Geely Panda-based Tobe M’Car in 2010 and now it is time for the second Geely-based vehicle.

Exports of China’s automobiles and automotive accessories have flourished since 2010 as the global economy started to recover in late 2009, a Chinese trade official said during a car export conference on Sept 27.

Automobile exports reached 465,000 units in the first seven months of 2011, up 53.3 percent year-on-year, according to statistics provided by the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China.

Honda has two joint ventures in China; Guangzhou-Honda and Dongfeng-Honda. The Guangzhou-Honda sub-brand is called Everus and the first car, the Everus S1, was listed in May.

Dongfeng-Honda will have its own sub-brand and that one will be called Ciimo, Si Ming in Chinese. The first car will be based on the last-gen Honda Civic, the new Civic debuted last week on the Chengdu Auto Show. On pic the new Ciimo-logo.